Struggling to get the creative juices flowing? I’d like to share what you could call my ‘lightbulb moment’ – the basis for my Radio for Art Directors© sessions.
I’ve worked with the same sound engineer, the remarkable André Jacquemin in London for more than 30 years. Many of our spots were radio playlets (still are) and with stereo, we could place or move characters left or right, up or downstage.
There came a point, though, where I began to draw crude diagrams to indicate how I saw the blocking. This kind of thing.
I created these for André and I but I also showed them to agency guys to help involve them in the process. Sometimes I came up with adventurous stereo stuff with voices and sounds coming from all over, and diagrams made them much easier to explain.
I don’t remember when exactly I started drawing storyboards before the recordings, but it sure helped agencies get a feel for… well, the story! It also helped them sell spots to clients.
Although I sometimes hired real storyboard artists for important jobs, I mostly did – and still do my own scribbles – like this one for an anti-speeding spot I directed in 2009 for M&C Saatchi.
My light bulb took around 15 years to illuminate, but my visual approach to creating radio, e.g. the storyboard, is at the heart of the radio workshops which I’ve now taken to 33 countries. I’m thrilled to say that I get a constant stream – well, trickle, of e-mails from all over the world saying how it’s helped them approach radio writing in a new way.
Tony Hertz
Creative Radio Specialist
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